WASHINGTON— Acting to silence a fierce domestic and international outcry over his separation of children and parents at the border, U.S. President Donald Trump issued an order Wednesday to detain families together — but indefinitely.Trump’s move toward the extended detention of children generated a fresh round of denunciation. A court battle was certain. And the vague language of the order made it unclear how the administration would actually proceed.Still, the decision was a significant reversal from a president who loathes to be seen backing down, especially on illegal immigration, and who had repeatedly lied that he was powerless to end the separations if Congress did not pass a new law.“We’re going to have strong, very strong borders, but we’re going to keep the families together. I didn’t like the sight or the feeling of families being separated,” Trump said upon signing the order.Trump relented under pressure from not only Democrats but from Republicans, who were being inundated with outraged phone calls and had grown worried about potential harm to their midterm campaigns. By Wednesday morning, the people criticizing the policy included the Pope, U.K. Prime Minister Theresa May and Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, who called the policy “wrong” and “unacceptable.”The order was an implicit admission that the president and his top officials had been deceiving the public.Until he signed the order, Trump, his spokespeople, Vice-President Mike Pence and Homeland Security Secretary Kirstjen Nielsen had falsely insisted that he could not end the separations with such an order. Trump, professing to “hate” his own policy, had claimed he was merely abiding by a nonexistent law he said “Democrats gave us.”His position became untenable as the furor ballooned, fuelled by disturbing photos of children caged in a warehouse-like facility in Texas and by audio of children ...
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